Musings on the AI Bubble

I see the comparison of AI to a "bubble" has become a common topic among technology enthusiasts and skeptics alike.?

I have been asked to give my perspective on the same topic multiple times — summarizing my opinion in 3 takeaways:

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1. ?????? ???????????????? ?????? ???????? ?? ???????????? ??????, ?????? ?????? ?????? ???????????? ???????????? ???????? ???? ????????????????????: In the year 2000, everybody called the internet a bubble. Today, there are more than 820M active internet users in India alone, who do everything from consuming, communicating, learning, lending – almost everything on the internet. Indians send over 10B+ emails per day, make about 400M+ UPI transactions per day. Obviously, none of this would be possible without the internet as we know it.?
2. ???????????????????????? ?????? ?????????? ?? ???????????? ???????? ?? ????????????????’?? ??????, ???????? ???????? ???? ????????????????’?? ??????: Radical technologies either allow people to do something that couldn’t be done before, or provide them with a 10x upgrade on a status quo experience. For consumers, this is traditionally a welcome change. But for investors — who are almost exclusively concerned with quantifying the monetary impact and it’s timing — that is where a bubble truly comes in.
3. ???????????? ?????? ?????????????????????????? ?????? ?????????????? ???? ???????? ????????????????: Usage and adoption is linked very closely to the cost of access and affordability of any technology. The only reason India was able to go from 300M mobile users in 2010 to 1.1B users in 2024 is because the average smartphone became available for < $100. What AI has gone through over the last two years is no different. Ease of access & a drastic reduction in cost has resulted in a massive adoption spike. Today, I see that there are a whole variety of interesting user segments that have become active with ChatGPT users in India — from rural college kids to SMB employees.?
4. ???????????? ???? ??????????, ?????????????? ???????????????????????? ???????????? ??????????: Even if 2000 was an internet bubble due to the indiscriminate investing that followed, companies like 亚马逊 on and 谷歌 still emerged from the bubble to be worth over $3T today while deeply integrating with the daily lives of billions of people throughout the world. AI will have a similar moment, and it will undoubtedly give rise to a new generation of companies.?

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1. ???? ???? ???????? ???? ?????? ???????????????????????? ?????????? ???????? ???? ?????????? ???? ?????????? ???????????? ???????????? ????????????????????: From the smartphone in our pocket, to the self-driving vehicles that we will use to commute; AI really is going to democratize intelligence, and offer humans a whole new variety of automation capabilities that allow us to do a lot more, a lot better, a lot faster.?
2. ???? ?????? ?????? ???????? ???????????? ???????????????? ???????????? ???? — ???????? ?????????????? ???? ????????????:

• A recent project saw implementation of AI-driven insights for 10K chilli farmers to optimize soil health, weather prediction, and pesticide and fertilizer application recommendations — doubling their incomes. Considering that 50% of India’s workforce today is still farming, the potential impact here could run into billions.
• Today, we are starting to see AI applications merge into every workflow across industries. I believe that ultimately this will impact the entire skill set of India’s service sector workforce, which is on its way to cross 400M by 2030. A simple example I like to think of is how writers/coders are evolving into becoming prompters/editors for their domains with off-the shelf tools (like ChatGPT) or customized platforms. So, instead of having to do everything from scratch and take ‘X’ amount of time, AI is doing the major legwork for them.?
• It is estimated to add $1.5T to India’s GDP over the next 6 years. This potential impact is likely to give birth to many many companies that build on the end-user applications/platforms, in addition to the infrastructure companies that have attracted most of the investor capital over the last 2 years.

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1. Did you know that the human brain is an amazingly energy-efficient device. In computing terms, it can perform the equivalent of an exaflop — a billion billion (1 followed by 18 zeros) mathematical operations per second — with just 20 watts of power.
2. What AI is really going to do is allow for intelligence to be democratized, distributed, and re-produced in machines at an unparalleled level. When you integrate that into every piece of hardware and software that we utilize for work and life, we will see a massive compounding in the level of intelligence that surrounds us and affects everything that we do.?

I have a way of having my own ‘Adrak Chai’ every day, and only 1-2 people in the family make it the way I like it. With AI-embedded machines, it can either aid someone with preparation, or maybe completely replace them (cooking robots, who knows?)?

AI will bring intelligence, not only ours but of everyone around the world at our fingertips. The internet may have created access to information, but AI will convert this to intelligence and insight.?

I believe that an early wave of hype can always create many distorted incentives. The earliest Internet startups tried to profit from the craziness, went public as quickly as possible and often had built no real business to speak of.?

But, companies from the second/third wave had to compete on real merits.?

This could be true for the case of AI as well.

#AI #Technology #Innovation #FutureTech #GenAI